


you're gonna feel much more like god is a mystery

by elainebarrish



Category: Gone Girl (2014), Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
Genre: F/F, i don't think this is actually good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 15:10:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20780630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/pseuds/elainebarrish
Summary: Margo is rage and Boney lets her be and she keeps her distance and she tries to act like she doesn't care. Margo is angry enough for all of them, angry where Nick is defeated and Rhonda is just fucking exhausted, angry because she can't think of anything else to be apart from just plain old goddamn sad.





	you're gonna feel much more like god is a mystery

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i think margo is a bit too much nora and my boney is always at least a fair amount madison and kate baldwin but shrug emoji

All she says is “don’t” but it echoes, it permeates deep into her subconscious, so she doesn’t. For a year she backs away and disappears as soon as she sees ripped jeans and glasses, she turns around as soon as she hears her voice, however distant it might be. Go is allowed to be angry and maybe scared and definitely disappointed. She’s allowed to think that Rhonda was supposed to be able to do more, allowed to think that she should have given up more in apology, that she should have been able to  _ do _ something. So she lets her be angry and backs away before she sees her lips curl into something like rage.

She goes back to just working, to just trying to keep the abandoned mall from starting a forest fire and dealing with things that don’t become some kind of nationwide media circus. She’s angry too, angry at how Amy managed to undo the progress her last successful cases made, how one case seems to have knocked her career awry. It was all there but it wasn’t that and maybe she should have trusted her gut, the small feeling that Nick was an asshole but a goddamn regular one.

So she doesn’t see them, let's Go work through her anger and does a better job of forgetting about Amy than anyone else does, even if she backs out of a few queues for coffee, even if she skips a few breakfasts and stands in one corner of the local Walmart until Go has paid. She knows that Margo has enough reminders, knows she doesn’t need to see her, and she just wishes that they’d met in a different way, that the small smiles and civility and everything that she thinks, sometimes, could have happened, could have begun in a different way. She pretends like all she feels is understanding when really what she feels is something that she tries to tell herself should not be hurt, something like hurt would be selfish, when she’s not the important thing here. Something crazy happened and they’re all just trying to have normal reactions, and Margo Dunne is not hurting her by being angry at the person who put her in jail, who should have been able to punish a murderer. She’s angry at herself too, most days, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to call her.

And then she gets called to a crime scene and it’s the fucking Bar and Gil just looks at her, with a tiny smile.

“Do you think she’ll be there?” he asks, and Boney ignores him while she checks she has her gun and her badge and her chapstick, grabbing the coffee she hasn’t even had a chance to drink yet.

Margo isn’t there and she’s confused by the twisted mix of disappointment and relief, because she  _ wants _ to see her, badly, but she knows Go doesn’t want to see her, will probably never want to see her. It’s a break-in, a simple one, where there’s a fingerprint on the frame of the broken window that was the entry point. The Dunne’s aren’t even the ones that called in; their little pocket of fame has given them the resources to actually employ people. She talks to her, the alternate looking twenty-five year old and absently wonders if Go hires girlfriends, because Boney’s gaydar is pinging throughout her entire conversation with her.

“Did you call the owners?”

“Yeah, Go’s heading down right now,” she gives her a look. “Don’t you two know each other?”

“It was more or less in an official capacity,” Rhonda says stiffly, and changes the topic.

“Detective Boney.” Margo says, nodding at her as she approaches The Bar, dodging under the fucking yellow tape without thinking about it. “I didn’t rob myself so you don’t have to arrest me this time.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” is all Rhonda says, then she launches into the usual questions, even though she knows that she’s just waiting for the fingerprint analysis to come back, that with a match they can then continue with their lives and not see each other again. She lets Margo be mean, lets her be angry at Boney instead of at Amy, because who knows what Amy will do if Margo says anything of the things that she wants to.

They’re done, and she’s about to say goodbye when when she says “how’s your niece?” instead, and almost rolls her eyes at herself.

“Looks exactly like Amy,” Go says with a shrug. “I don’t see her that often.”

“By choice, or because of Amy?”

“I’m pretty sure Amy thinks that each interaction with me brings Cecelia’s IQ down by five,” she says, gruff and ironic and sarcastic and angry, jaw clenched.

“God that kid is gonna be so weird,” is all Boney says in reply and actually startles a laugh out of Go, and she’s smiling as she dismisses herself and returns to her cruiser.

“She was hot.”

“Shut up Amita,” Go shoots back, still smiling as she turns to look at the broken window.

“Shhe likes you,” Amita continues, and Go rolls her eyes. “Even though you’re kinda mean to her.”

“I think she’s probably used to people being kind of mean to her,” she says and pretends like she doesn’t feel bad for how she’s acted, pretends she doesn’t feel bad for the shouting their last conversation had included. “Anyway they didn’t take the tape with them, so I guess we’re not opening today, looks like you have the day off.”

Amita starts to walk away and then she turns suddenly. “She didn’t give us her contact info how are we supposed to know when we can open again?”

“I still have hers,” Go says, and shrugs uncomfortably. “And she probably still has mine. She knows where I live, anyway.”

“What happened between you two?” Amita asks, and Go waves her off, climbing into her car without replying.

  
  


“You can have the bar back tomorrow,” Boney says when Go pics up, not bothering with preamble because she thinks she knows that Margo isn’t interested in what she has to say. “Forensics should finish up tonight, and it’ll be up to you and your insurance to fix the broken window.”

“Thanks,” she pauses and searches for something to say, for something that isn’t “I’m sorry”. “Amita didn’t actually tell me what they took.”

“Just what was in the register, and a couple of bottles. Not even expensive ones.”

“I guess she told you that we don’t keep anything other than the float in there.”

“She did. The safe had a couple of scratches on it, like they’d tried to manhandle it open, but your employee checked the contents and she said they definitely didn’t manage to get in.”

“So you think it was just a random robbery?”

“Probably, just some punks who thought they’d try their luck with what was in the register.”

“Maybe Amy did it,” Go tries, but the joke falls flat.

“Unfortunately the fingerprints weren’t hers.”

“Damn,” Go says, all drama, and Boney thinks her voice is warmer than she’s heard it in a long time, not since Margo thought she could actually do something about Amy, that brief period of time where Rhonda dared to think Go would forgive her for the whole putting her in jail thing.

“One day I’ll get her for something,” Boney says, more seriously than she meant to.

“I know,” Go says honestly, sincerely, and she hangs up because that felt more like an apology than she was comfortable with.

  
  


She comes back, later, when they’re open, instead of calling because she thinks she feels some sort of shift, thinks that maybe Go is nearing something that could be a willingness to let some of the things that happened in the past stay in the past. Boney knows her anger is misplaced, knows that it’s just because she can’t be angry at Amy, knows that it’s not about her, not really, but it still takes a moment for her to steel herself before she gets out of the cruiser, before she can convince herself to face her.

“Oh hey,” Go says, and she seems almost pleased to see her, and Boney is almost glad that she got robbed because she’s not sure she could have left things how they were forever.

“I just thought I’d update you on the case.”

Go smiles and pulls some mugs and a pot of coffee out from beneath the counter, and Rhonda almost grins.

“You installed that just for me, didn’t you?”

“I almost got you a World’s Best Detective mug to go with it but then I thought I’d save that for your birthday.”

Boney laughs and it feels good, better, and maybe she feels better too, better than she has in a while, anyway.

She’s leaving later, case updated and coffee drank. “My birthday’s next week, if you still think that mug’s a good idea.”

“Oh what day?”

“Friday.”

“Come visit and can see whether I thought it was,” Go invites, as smooth as she’s ever been, and Boney smiles.

“It’s a date. I’ll see you here after work.”

“I expect you to be in your civvies, Go calls after her, not letting her have the last word, and Rhonda just turns and smiles, shrugging like she’ll think about it.

  
  


The case gets closed and the window repaired before the Friday, and business is back to normal. Amita and a couple of others do most of the actual serving these days, and Nick is too busy with the baby, and being married to Amy to be that involved. Go’s there most of the time to do the books and the orders and to cover her staff when they’re out ill and to help with the evening rush. So her and Amita are both there when Boney walks in at half six, hair down (and Go thinks it looks lighter when it’s down), denim shirt over jeans, a combination which should be horrible but somehow isn’t.

“Oh no she  _ is _ hot,” Amita complains quietly while Boney’s crossing from the door, and Go swats her lightly.

“Back off, she’s here for me,” Go says, smiling, and Amita raises her eyebrows, ignored as Go lifts a section of the bar to usher Boney through to the back. There’s a set up sort of like a break room back here, and it’s embarrassingly where Go spends most of her time these days.

“Sit,” she commands, and gestures towards the sofa and Boney does what she’s told, respecting that this is Go’s turf.

“Am I dragging you away from your work?” she asks, smiling.

“No, I’ve got Colin coming in at eight to help with the college kids, and Amita will close up for me,” her eyes narrow. “Are you trying to suggest I don’t do anything?” she asks, playing offended when she finally catches the teasing tone in Rhonda’s voice.

“I wondered if you were going to catch that.”

“Are you allowed to say things like that to me? I thought you were still being apologetic?” she says, before she thinks about it and she instantly regrets it.

“I think maybe you’ve been cashing in that cheque for much more than it’s worth,” Boney says, all hard angles and soft eyes and that fucking intensity that Go both hates and loves.

“I see your point, but I would like to raise that maybe I like you like that,” Go replies and it’s quiet and maybe it’s honest, she doesn’t know anymore, she doesn’t know what she wants or what she needs or why she’s inviting Boney back to her.

“You could like me in other ways, you just haven’t tried.” 

Go thinks she must be imagining the suggestive tilt of her head, that warm tone of voice. “Maybe I just enjoy tempering your inherent smugness,” Go shrugs, looks at the coffee machine instead of at her for a second, turns holding a bottle of bourbon that she wiggles at Boney as an invitation, and when Boney nods she sloshes something like two large doubles into mugs, one of which does say World’s Best Detective, and she catches Boney’s smile as she takes it.

“Do you wanna talk about it? Me not being able to do anything about Amy?” Boney asks, after a pause of just looking, after Margo sits next to her, a suitable distance away that feels uncrossable to Boney but feels like it might not be far enough to Go.

“No I don’t,” Margo says, quieter than before. “I don’t wanna talk about any of it.”

“So do you wanna stop being angry at me?”

“What do you want?” Go asks instead, looking at her, lips pressed into a line, pushing Boney so Boney can’t push her, can’t push her into honesty.

“I wanna stop avoiding you,” Boney says simply, sighing out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “I wanna see you and drink bourbon and coffee and act like we’re people where this could go somewhere.” 

“Don’t you think it can?” she asks, nervously, quietly, more into her mug than at Rhonda.

“I would like it to, but you gotta stop taking Amy out on me,” she says, more honest than she thought Go would ever give an opportunity to be.

“I didn’t realise you saw a future for us,” Go tries to joke, and Rhonda just looks at her, not letting her out of it. She tries to think of words, ones that aren’t “I’m sorry” or “that’s all I want” or “all I’ve thought about since then is you” and instead she just crosses the gap, ignoring their mugs, ignoring that she’s definitely gonna end up with bourbon all over her jeans, ignoring that she still thinks this could be a terrible idea, ignoring that she might still be some kind of angry. She kisses her like she  _ is _ still angry, and their teeth bash together and maybe it’s more like a headbutt but Rhonda’s hand lands on her hip and she tilts her head up for her, Margo’s hand warm on her cheek.

“Is that how you apologise?” Boney asks, some kind of breathless with Margo hovering over and the smell of spilt bourbon between them.

“Usually I just never speak to people again,” Margo says, and when Rhonda laughs she grins, hair hanging in her face and Rhonda’s hand still on her hip.


End file.
